Loving a Shadow
by The Cheshire Cheese
Summary: Chakotay had no idea what he started when he put his hand on that female techie's shoulder in "Caretaker." (One-shot, drabble, humor.)


**A/N: This was inspired by a scene in the pilot episode "Caretaker." Right after Chakotay crashes his Maquis ship into the Kazon's, he is beamed to Voyager just in time, and in his relief, puts his hand on the shoulder of the transporter techie who saved him. Since said techie is young and female, I always have fun imagining what she must be thinking during that scene. It ultimately led to me writing this.**

 **WARNING: Crude, possibly offensive adult humor.**

 **I don't own "Voyager."**

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The incident that stranded us in the Delta Quadrant was hell. Flung 75,000 lightyears from home, half the new friends I'd made that morning dead, being "entertained" by holographic hillbillies, and hostile aliens trying to kill us. That's what I remember. Maybe some of the senior officers have a few positive memories of those few days, since they had the chance to see the more interesting parts of the adventure up close. (Torres and Kim got to see the Ocampa's underground city, and Paris probably enjoyed piloting Voyager through the battle with the Kazon.) The only silver lining of that entire incident, for me, was meeting Commander Chakotay.

The way I met the first officer was nothing remarkable, just an incident that makes for a mildly funny story. I told it a few times the first few weeks aboard Voyager, and it tended to lighten people's moods. My "big sister" Ensign Annalie Blackhorse often begged me to tell it throughout the journey, when things were looking grim, or when we were just insanely bored. A lot of the Maquis found it funny too. I've told it so many times that by now, a few parts might be a bit exaggerated.

What you have to understand is, I knew _nothing_ about the Maquis crew we were assigned to chase. This was my first mission, and I wasn't giving the details much thought. My job was essentially to push buttons on command. I did hear the name of the captain we were chasing a few times, "Chakotay," and I thought it sounded French. Over time, I built up an image of Commander Chakotay as a scowling French Resistance fighter with a tiny curved mustache, wearing a lopsided barrette, holding a phaser rifle at an angel and smoking a cigar.

Later that day when I met the ship's doctor—the original, now-dead human doctor—he mentioned something about us chasing "a tattooed outlaw," and I unconsciously added an armful of prison tattoos to my French fighter caricature. When I asked the doctor what Chakotay's tattoos were of, Dr. Anders grumbled, "Some Indian design."

Thinking he meant East Indians, I asked, "Like those Hindu hand-tattoos, with all the swirls?"

"What? No, _American_ Indian. Native."

This altered my image of Commander Chakotay significantly. He lost the facial hair, and became about two times more buff. He now had a long silver braid running down his back, and (for some reason) a cowboy hat. But he still had the giant gun cocked sideways. The cranky doctor shoed me out before I had time to ask what Chakotay's tattoo looked like. Not long after that, Voyager was thrown to the other side of the galaxy and half the crew was killed on impact, so for the next couple of days I had other things on my mind.

When Lt. Carrey ordered me to the transporter room during the Kazon battle, I didn't question it. By that point, I'd become so used to simply responding to orders on the double, with smoke and blaring alarms all around me, that my first-day jitters and self-doubt were long gone. I reported to the transporter room, and remained there throughout the battle, just waiting for someone to bellow over the comm., "Get a lock on so-and-so," or "Two to beam up!" I was just starting to realize I was hungry, when an unfamiliar voice broke from my comm. badge.

" _Paris to Transporter Room 2: Get a lock on Commander Chakotay, and when he says so, beam him up. He's planning on crashing his ship into the Kazon's, so timing's important. I've routed his audio to your station_."

"Understood!" I replied curtly, feeling my entire body tighten up.

This was the first time another person's life was at the tips of my fingers. I'd been anticipating this moment all through the Academy, of course. But actually hearing it…and of all people, the _commander_ of the Maquis crew…If I screwed this up, I'd be in some deep tribble shit.

I don't remember the details of the conversation leading up to the beam-out. Sometimes I think someone else on the Bridge, or Transporter Room 1, had a lock on Chakotay as well, and it was just whoever could beam him up first; but I might be confusing it with some other event. There were so many over seven years.

Well however it happened, I suddenly heard a voice over the comm. scream hoarsely, "Now!" and I beamed him up.

The man who appeared on the transporter block wasn't the space-cowboy I'd been picturing. His hair was cropped short, and he didn't have the scowl I'd been anticipating. His Maquis uniform reminded me of something from "Lord of the Rings," with a laced leather vest and sleeves rolled just below the elbow. He was covered in grime and soot, looking like he'd come from battling Orcs.

" _Transporter Room 2, have you got him?_ " Paris asked.

And while Lt. Paris was speaking, Chakotay was already leaving the pad, _coming right_ up to me, wearing this huge adorable smile. His eyes were deep set and mysterious looking, under wolfish eyebrows. I got a look at his tattoo, a stylized tribal bird wing, or wind pattern or something. And _then_ —are you sitting down?— _he_ _puts his hand on my shoulder._ His hand was heavy and soft, reminding me (weirdly) of a bear paw.

"They've got me!"

He had a low soft voice that had an uncomfortable affect on my girly parts. I watched him leave the transporter room, thinking, holy god, no wonder the Federation and the Cardassians were all looking for this man. He was sex on a stick! By time he was gone not only was the ship in shambles, but so were my panties.

The first night after we began our journey home, when I was trying to get to sleep, I tried to distract myself from the prospect of a 75 year mission and never seeing my family again by focusing on the hardships I had to prepare myself for. Like, what if Commander Chakotay decided on a Maquis mutiny? And what if the Maquis takeover involved taking the ship's women? I would prove my courage to Starfleet and offer myself up in place of all my female comrades. It would be horrible, lying on the bed and watching the outlaw captain unlace his leather vest and peel of his shirt, exposing his hairless, muscular chest, which obviously would be covered with more tattoos, including one of the Maqius raider, and probably a coiled snake somewhere, but I would brave it. For the ship.

Unfortunately for Yours Truly, Commander Chakotay proved to be a man of peace and honor, who would never dream of violating a rank-less techie ten years his junior in the middle of the night, and in any case whose tastes steered more towards Cardassian spies and ex-drones. I was also extremely depressed to see the Maquis uniform go. Even more frustrating, Chakotay _did_ mutiny against Janeway's orders many times over the course of the journey, but none of his agendas ever involved kidnapping any females. God damn it.

My crush on the First Officer began to wane a few months into the journey, as I began to pay more attention to dreamboats like Vorik and Ashmore and that good looking security officer whose name I can never remember. But every once in a while would come an incident that rekindled the flame. Like the time the Commander punched that crewman in the Mess Hall. I was replaying that one in my mind for weeks. Or the time B'Elanna found that "Insurrection Alpha" program, where Chakotay was an evil Maquis mutineer. I was one of the many people addicted to that program. I was also one of the people offering ideas to Tom Paris and Tuvok, when they were working on a way to finish the story. I caught them in the hallway and offered them the idea I'd been forming in my mind: the Maquis leader agrees to let Janeway's loyalists live, in exchange for one Starfleet girl to sign a contract to remain onboard as the commander's official "Submissive." Tom and Tuvok just stood there and looked at me weird.

But it's not like I spent the whole journey obsessing over one officer. Chakotay was just one of several crushes I experienced over the years. (I'm usually partial towards Vulcans, but Tuvok was married, and there was way too much competition for Vorik for me to even be interested in bothering.) By the time Voyager actually experienced the Maquis mutiny I'd fantasized about that first year, I'd forgotten all about my old Maquis fetish, and was currently trying to talk my boyfriend Will Chapman into growing a pointed goatee like Commander Spock's famed counterpart in the Mirror Universe.

Will and I were in the upper level of engineering, working on a diagnostic, when suddenly the lift brought up Commander Chakotay, Lt. Torres, and Lt. Ayala, all in their old Maquis outfits. Will and I just stared, dumbfounded.

Then I said to Chakotay, wide-eyed, "You look _sexy_ Commander!"

He smiled broadly, with those adorable dimples. "Thank you Crewman."

And then he phasered me.

I woke up in a forest on some M-Class planet, where the Maquis were dumping all the Starfleets. Paris explained to everyone that an insane Bajoran from the Alpha Quadrant had infected Commander Tuvok's mail with a virus, and then—you'll never _guess_ what happened next—the security chief went berserk, and mild-melded all the Maquis crewmen to brainwash them into a pointless mutiny. By the seventh year in the Delta Quadrant, most of us were so used to ship-wide crises and Tuvok going insane, that people were more concerned with having their holodeck schedules messed up, and how to kill time on this boring planet until the senior officers retook the ship. Will and I decided to kill time by arguing.

"How come you never wanted _me_ to put on a Maquis uniform and violate you?" my boyfriend demanded, folding his arms and leaning against a tree.

Ignoring the strange looks we were getting from our shipmates, I said sternly, "That was _six years ago_ Will. Look, it's not unusual for a junior officer to crush on their superiors. My grandma served aboard the Enterprise, and she never, not till her dying day, stopped talking about what a dreamboat Commander Spock was. But she never cheated on my grandpa for Spock." While Will rolled his eyes (and more people came drifting towards us to eavesdrop), I added, "What about you and Seven of Nine, huh? You still can't look her in the eye, since your date two years ago!"

"That's because I'm terrified she'll break my arm again!"

We were still arguing when Janeway and Tuvok retook the ship, and began beaming the crew back up.

"…I didn't say we _had_ to use pain sticks, it was just a suggestion!" I shouted, before realizing that we were now in the transporter room, with Jor and Tabor at the transporter (still in their Maquis outfits), staring at us.

That night the crew celebrated Tuvok and the Maquis' recovery in Tom Paris's new holoprogram, a twentieth century 3-D movie theater. The first couple features were some old B-monster flicks, but after that, Tom began taking suggestions for films in the ship's database. I suggested "Lord of the Rings," because the Maquis uniforms were all fresh in my mind, and they always reminded me of something from that type of fantasy epic. A few of us wound up staying the entire night, and went through the whole "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. I was extremely sympathetic to Eowyn this time around.

One line in particular stuck out to me. It was the scene where Aragorn rejects her, and he says, "You love a shadow."

I'd always known that I didn't really _know_ Commander Chakotay, or Commander Tuvok, or Lt. Ayala, or Dr. Chaotica, or Q, or Commander Spock's evil Mirror Universe counterpart, or any of the other men I'd held distant crushes for over the years. But the way Tolkien words that type of attraction, "loving a shadow," it really puts a new, and accurate, spin on it. What had Commander Chakotay ever been to me, except a cute smile, an exotic tattoo, and a fashion style five centuries out of date? Will, on the other hand, I knew well, from his social anxiety to his obsession with retro 23rd century antiques. Whoever Chakotay is with now—Seven of Nine, or Admiral Janeway, or some Orion dancer or William Riker—I hope they appreciate him for who he is, like I appreciate Will, and aren't just loving a shadow.

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 **A/N: Rather than make up a new "character" for the transporter girl, I decide to use an OC I already had, Crewman Kao Li Xiong, largely because she fit the description for this girl so closely. Kao Li** **appears in my stories "Coping Mechanisms" and "The Silver Bird." (** **Generally speaking, neither Kao Li nor her friend Annalie are particularly "weird" people; they just have some unconventional tastes in men and romance.)**

 **For the record, the girl in that "Caretaker" scene does** _ **not**_ **look quite how I imagine Kao Li, and she's probably not even the right ethnicity (Kao Li is supposed to be Hmong). But, going by "Star Trek"/TV logic, the actors' ethnicities need only be marginally close to those of the characters they're portraying; and plenty of recurring characters change actors over time, with no one acknowledging the obvious fact that they look different than last time. (Captain Braxton from "Voyager" and Ziyal from "Deep Space Nine" come to mind.)**


End file.
